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Fitness Update
Sep. 10th, 2015 10:10 pmSo I tried the 3 day plan for about a week, and it wasn't going to happen. It's not that my muscles were exhausted, but rather, my nervous system energy was. I just couldn't muster the overall mental/physical energy to do all compounds and a few isolations on a single day.
At the beginning of last week I switched over to a two-day split routine. Basically, I just took some compounds: bent over row, bench press and squats, and moved them onto Monday/Thursday. I put deadlifts, overhead presses and dips on Tuesday/Friday. I put some isolations on each day as well: lateral raises, curls and leg isolations (hamstring curl, leg extension) on Monday/Thursday, and shrugs and calf raises on tuesday/friday. I'm finding even this to be totally exhausting. My workout tonight, the first where I actually managed to do all exercises I intended to do on a thursday, took about 45 minutes. Squats and leg isolations were my last exercises, and I only managed about half of what I wanted - not because my muscles were exhausted, but because I was totally deficient in energy (squats are also incredibly hard on my cardio, so it takes quite a bit for me to get my breath back and for my heart rate to drop afterwards.)
I'm not sure if I need to modify my diet, or just wait for my endurance to build up. I tried loading a lot more carbohydrates today and that didn't work (I was also super sleepy today and napped TWICE.) It could just be the weather, I guess - the temperature finally dropped below 70 degrees after about three weeks of high 80s and 90s...
At any rate, I'm really hoping I get past these little hurdles. I don't much enjoy working my body to that collapse point - I love weight lifting and pushing my muscles to exhaustion, but this type of feeling is totally different than what I'm used to. If I don't exhaust the muscles, they don't really grow, and if my overall energy is preventing that, I need to figure out what is creating that wall.
Maybe I need to be more serious about cardio on the off days...that would at least help condition me for the energy/oxygen required for squats and deadlifts.
At the beginning of last week I switched over to a two-day split routine. Basically, I just took some compounds: bent over row, bench press and squats, and moved them onto Monday/Thursday. I put deadlifts, overhead presses and dips on Tuesday/Friday. I put some isolations on each day as well: lateral raises, curls and leg isolations (hamstring curl, leg extension) on Monday/Thursday, and shrugs and calf raises on tuesday/friday. I'm finding even this to be totally exhausting. My workout tonight, the first where I actually managed to do all exercises I intended to do on a thursday, took about 45 minutes. Squats and leg isolations were my last exercises, and I only managed about half of what I wanted - not because my muscles were exhausted, but because I was totally deficient in energy (squats are also incredibly hard on my cardio, so it takes quite a bit for me to get my breath back and for my heart rate to drop afterwards.)
I'm not sure if I need to modify my diet, or just wait for my endurance to build up. I tried loading a lot more carbohydrates today and that didn't work (I was also super sleepy today and napped TWICE.) It could just be the weather, I guess - the temperature finally dropped below 70 degrees after about three weeks of high 80s and 90s...
At any rate, I'm really hoping I get past these little hurdles. I don't much enjoy working my body to that collapse point - I love weight lifting and pushing my muscles to exhaustion, but this type of feeling is totally different than what I'm used to. If I don't exhaust the muscles, they don't really grow, and if my overall energy is preventing that, I need to figure out what is creating that wall.
Maybe I need to be more serious about cardio on the off days...that would at least help condition me for the energy/oxygen required for squats and deadlifts.
